Ferran wrote:
Polama wrote:
They aggregate and monetize reputation.
[...]
You could still have matches between top players without professional associations, but I can't imagine you'd get the same degree of sponsorship and support, and certainly not the breadth (perhaps the top few could make it, but not the 2 and 3 dans)
Well... That's the theory, yes. Thing is, I've read very similar things regarding, for example, the Big V in publishing. I've glimpsed similar things in music. And so on.
Publishing is different: a consumer is buying the book, not the reputation. Maybe the publishing organization can offer value in distribution and marketing or whatever, but at the end of the day the writer is paid because people decided the book was worth purchasing.
That's different then a sponsored tournament, where it is literally the reputation and audience eyeballs for sale.
Boxing, especially pre-20th century is a good example here: you didn't have associations, you had promoters who would hire boxers to fill a ring. People paid to see two people punch each other, and the promoter/managers/boxers would split the revenue. If you had fans and could fill the ring yourself, you could demand a bigger cut, fit in larger venues that brought in more cash. But that worked, because the professional pay was ticket sales. If enough of us were paying $5 a match to watch go games live, other models start making sense.
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And it works... until it doesn't.
Absolutely. Advertising is fickle. The one I mourn most is investigative journalism and classified ads, especially at the local news level. If you wanted to reach an audience for your goods/services, you had to fund expensive journalism as a side effect. The internet dis-aggregated the two, and now we're still trying to figure out how to pay for that valuable service as a society.
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And your reference to lower-dans... Well, those can't earn a living on their Go games alone, AFAIK. Not at 4p and below. Those who don't have another job are also teaching to make ends meet. In that sense, an association of teachers, with courses on systems of teaching or different learning paradigms and psychologies, might be more useful. Again using publishing as an example, midlist writers don't really get much from the Big V. I know Spanish basketball and soccer have had issues with the equivalent level of players.
I think those stipends still matter for access. Minor League Baseball players aren't paid a living wage. But the wages help, they at least allow prospects to devote their summers to the game, if not their lives. And same with mid-level writers: they need a day job, but maybe they don't need to work 50 hour weeks to seek promotion into a more comfortable life, because they can use writing as a supplement. And that gives an opportunities to improve, to possibly break into the elite. Or to develop parallel skills, enough writing chops to enter some adjacent market.
A number of less popular Olympic sports just require the competitor to have wealthy parents supporting them. I think that greatly drags down the level of competition.
I do think these systems are exploitative, mind. But if we want people to have the opportunity to devote their lives to these pursuits, we have to find ways to get more money into them.
Broadly, we see these other sorts of approaches:
eSports tournaments are largely sponsored by game publishers, to promote the game they're selling.
Sports with expensive equipment often get sponsorship by manufacturers, to sell to enthusiastic amateurs.
Sports people like to watch (soccer, football, ...) can survive on ticket revenue, jerseys, tv contracts. This is a more direct sale, so the association is less necessary.
Government/Wealthy patronage has been a part for long stretches of history.
Public patronage (e.g. Patreon) is fairly new and hasn't shown great success yet, but is possible.
Sports people like to watch can also just monetize the eyeballs via advertising whatever, especially if the fans are of a desired advertising demographic
People can gamble (e.g. poker), with the majority of weak players subsidizing the winners.